Chapter 99 Persecuting religions and expelling foreigners 1950

Journalist: “Why did you start your new China by destroying religion and expelling foreigners as enemies of religion?”

Mao: “Marx said religion is opium, in fact, Marx is the devil, Marx was a Satanist throughout his life and death, Satan is the devil in opposition to God, Marx’s entire system of thought, is the devil to God’s rebellion, the devil to subvert God’s order, all religions are against the devil. When the masses believe in a religion, they contradict the Communist Party, which is inherently at odds with religion. So I launched an attack on religion from the very beginning.

In February 1951 I took Hu Qiaomu and issued a public order to crack down on churches like the Soviet Union did. Five monks from Lingle Temple in Hangzhou were forced to face more than 4,000 people to be criticized and sent to labor camps, and as early as February 1950, out of 2,000 monks and nuns in Shanghai, 500 were discharged. Some lamas in Tibetan areas of Sichuan were arrested, lama temples were turned into schools for the people or into prisons, and monks and nuns were criticized or even executed and treated like counter- revolutionaries.

On the other hand, I imposed reform and control on Buddhism. In November 1952, the Chinese Buddhist Association was established in Beijing, the association was completely subordinate to the Communist Party, monks had to participate in ideological reform and denounce each other, I confiscated the real estate assets of the temples, monks were supported by the Party and became civil servants.

In the face of government repression, many monks returned to lay as people, in 1950 there were 500,000 monks, in 1955 reduced to less than 100,000, tens of thousands of temples were converted into military camps, prisons, factories. There were 7 million Buddhists in the country and 230,000 temples of all sizes before liberation. From 1951 to 1958, only 100 temples were repaired to show foreign guests and maintain the facade, and the Yonghe Palace in Beijing was maintained in a glorious way so that it could be shown to foreign guests from Southeast Asian countries.”

Journalist: “You still maintain some facade for Buddhism, how about Taoism?”

Mao: “Foreigners don’t know Taoism, I do not have to worry about foreign guests, and Taoism has a history of secret rebellion, I will take measures to suppress, in 1951, Hebei Province, there are 2 million Taoists, the province arrested 3500 sect leaders, in June 1951, Beijing, more than 100,000 consistent Tao was forced to quit the sect.

Although many were killed, in 1953 Minister of Public Security Luo Ruiqing said that hundreds of civil sect leaders were still active in the southwest, some went underground, and more than 100 underground hideouts were found in Shaanxi in 1955.”

Journalist: “How do you feel about Christianity?”

Mao: “Christianity is a Western religion, and I certainly reject the destruction of it. Before the liberation, there were 3 million Catholics and 1 million Protestants in the country. Once liberated, I could not control them all quickly, so I issued the ‘Three-Self Manifesto’ requiring all believers to break their ties with foreign countries, and those who refused were accused of being imperialist lackeys. Those who refused to join the Patriotic Association were put under house arrest and, in serious cases, sent to labor camps. Seminaries were forced to close. A church in Yunnan used to have 400 people, but now there are three left.

In 1952, the church leaders were criticized for being a ‘secret society’ and had their land confiscated and their members dismissed. In 1952, they were criticized as ‘secret societies,’ had their land confiscated, and were disbanded.

In 1952, they were criticized as ‘secret societies,’ had their land confiscated and were disbanded. By 1954, the number of Catholics was reduced to 1.7 million, and from 16,000 churches in 1949, 3,250 remained in 1954, and the number of Protestants was reduced to 630,000. By the end of November 1955, a total of 1,500 religious were imprisoned and charged with counter-revolutionary crimes such as links with foreign countries, and the archbishop was sentenced to life imprisonment.”

Journalist: “How did you deal with Muslims?”

Mao: “The same suppression of the Muslim religion, the party cadres recognized that “‘he Muslims have no good things,’ in 1950, Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang, the Muslim armed resistance, participated in thousands of people, Pingliang County Muslim school was used to raise pigs, leading to more than 2,000 Muslim resistance. 1951, Gansu Ningding County, the city was besieged by 8,000 Muslims, thousands of people in the bloody melee. Thousands of people were killed in the bloody melee. The fuse was that eight Muslims were frozen to death in prison and their bodies were thrown into the wild.

In May 1953, I approved the establishment of the Islamic Association, and appointed Muslim leaders who cooperated with the government as the head of the Association, with the government paying their salaries and promoting “ideological education” for the Muslims.”

Journalist: “After the liberation, you rejected the expulsion of foreigners?”

Mao: “Yes, when I decided to go ‘to the side’ of the Soviet Union, I rejected all other foreigners. In 1951, I approved the killing of two foreigners who were accused of plotting to kill me and other leaders of the Central Committee by bombarding Tiananmen Square with mortars on the National Day. The case was actually a fabrication; the mortar was an antique from the 1930s, long out of service, and was found in church waste, along with a life sentence for the old Italian bishop accused of participating in the plot.

Foreigners came to China as missionaries beginning in the 16th century during the Ming Dynasty, and by 1920 there were 350,000 foreigners coming to China for missionary work, business, and cultural exchange; thousands of missionaries ran 13 universities and hundreds of high schools; missionaries spread to almost all counties in the country, and there were 4 million believers.

80,000 White Russians fled to China from the Russian Revolution in 1917, and more than 20,000 Jews fled from various European countries.

My expulsion of Americans began with the occupation of Shenyang in October 1948, when, on Stalin’s instructions, the army surrounded the American consulate and placed the American consul and staff under house arrest for a year, before arresting them in November 1949 and deporting them in December. In July, I published Farewell, Stuart,’ a satire on the U.S. ambassador Stanton. The U.S. had to evacuate all of them.

In 1949 the British sent the warship Amethyst to Nanking to evacuate foreigners, and I authorized the shelling that stranded her for 10 weeks, killing 40 people, and in July 1949 the American vice consul in Shanghai was detained for three days for driving into a sealed road, and in March 1951 dozens of Americans were imprisoned on unclear evidence. By the end of 1951, Shanghai was completely cleared of foreigners.

There were hundreds of beautiful foreign villas in Beidaihe. I approved an extraordinarily high property tax to force foreigners to give up their properties and confiscate the villas that became mine and those of senior Party cadres, and hundreds of church hospitals run by foreign churches were confiscated. 250 orphanages run by churches were also taken over by the government.

Leprosy villages, where the missionaries were humanely assisted, were left unattended after the missionaries were driven out. In a leper village of 160 people in Moxi, Sichuan, patients went begging and were disliked, chased, and even buried alive. Guizhou burned the patients to death and 8 were executed. In June 1951, in Yongren County, Yunnan Province, the militia put 110 lepers in one house and set fire to 104 of them, only 6 escaped and survived. All were tragedies caused under our tyranny.

Most of the orphanages were run by religious charities before liberation, but after liberation the government took over and the orphan mortality rate was as high as 30%.

The Soviets were the only foreigners living in China with preferential treatment. 150,000 Soviets were in China in 1950, including 60,000 Soviet troops at the port of Lushun and 50,000 along the Northeast Railway, thousands of Soviet technicians were in China in the 1950s to help with construction.”